(Hat tip to Sean and Will for their conversation on Facebook that inspired this article.) The evangelists for evolution make a lot of strange and contradictory statements. I am routinely ridiculed and characterized as some sort of anti-Darwinian nutcase who doesn't understand the basic concepts of evolution theory because I tend to paraphrase what the "experts" have written and said with dripping sarcasm. One of my more vocal critics was asked his opinion about this six-minute video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyTcINLKq4c Prosanta Chakrabarty Sean replied, That's the kind of explanation I would have given. I only have a couple of provisos:(1) I would disagree that there are lots of <<theories>> of evolution. I would say there was one overarching theory with lots of associated hypotheses.(2) I'd disagree that birds are reptiles. I think reptiles are a paraphyletic group, which excludes aves. Other than that, I think it was a good overall summary. Hmmm. Was that video really a good summary? Professor Chakrabarty began his speech with a joke formed as a loaded question frequently attributed to creationists: "If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" And the punchline? "Well, because we're not monkeys. We're fish." The really funny thing was Chakrabarty wasn't joking. According to the theory of evolution, humans are directly related to fish primarily by descent with modification via sexual reproduction, by isolation of a breeding population, over long periods of time. It seemed to me that Professor Chakrabarty was making a number of … [Read more...]
Dishonest book reviews
Unless these are the first words I've written that you've ever read, you're probably aware of the fact I've been a rather unabashed critic of Darwinian theory as extrapolated to explain the origin of new species. The results of Gregor Mendel's genetic experiments, muddled together with atheist philosophy, offers a superficial and completely inadequate alternative to a supernatural Creator, yet the high priests of Darwin eagerly wait for the first opportunity to make a blood sacrifice of those deemed heretics. Writing a book and getting it published is actually rather easy in the modern world of ebooks and self-publishing. However, writing a book worth reading is another matter entirely. I know this, because after letting them go "cold" in my memory I re-read my first two Mercer novels and promptly pulled them off the market in order to improve them. I'm a tough, but fair critic. The plots won't be changed significantly, but I know I can do a better job of telling the story than I did when I first started writing eight years ago. My wife and I have become much better editors over time. Recently I stumbled across this internet post by Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson, who made a worrisome claim about a fellow academic named Herman Mays. Dr. Jeanson recently wrote a book called Replacing Darwin, which I have not had the opportunity to read. In this article where Dr. Mays was mentioned, Dr. Jeanson wrote, Dr. Mays asserted that I’m scientifically incompetent to make the claims that I do in Replacing Darwin. He also claimed that my book is full of errors and omissions. … [Read more...]
The gods of atheism
Most atheists will claim they don't believe in gods, but they're wrong. They simply don't recognize their gods as being gods because they lack the traditional names like Jesus, Yahweh, or Allah. The gods of atheism (and science) are Time and Luck. Yeah, I know--not all scientists are atheists, but most atheists want to think of themselves as intellectuals and scientists, though. Consider the following paragraph found in an article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, titled "Here's what happened when scientists gave octopuses ecstasy:" They (researchers from Johns Hopkins University) noted that octopuses are separated from humans by more than 500 million years of evolution and have brains that are more similar to those of snails. However, with MDMA, they were able to exhibit some of the same actions of people. Now if you're like me a few questions might have just popped into your head, such as: how would an octopus and a human being "share" a common ancestor? The relationship between "ancestor" and "descendant" is normally defined by sexual reproduction between two members of the same species. The two "species" in question have quite a few very obvious morphological differences, and the only person who apparently ever considered the quantitative differences between two distinctly different but allegedly related species seems to have been philosopher David Berlinski. Because cows and whales allegedly share a common, land-based mammal ancestor that hypothetically lived approximately 160 million years ago and was only about the size of a modern shrew, we … [Read more...]
A blind rock maker?
In his 1802 book titled Natural Theology, or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity Collected from the Appearance of Nature, Anglican Priest and philosopher William Paley made the classic teleological "argument from design" in his famous Watchmaker analogy, which says: In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and asked how that stone came to be there; I might possibly answer that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it has lain there forever. Nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I have found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer, which I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there.... The watch must have had a maker: that there must have existed, at some time, and that some place or other, and artificer or artificers, who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction and designed its use.... Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation. Granted, rebuttals have been attempted in response to Paley’s argument for Intelligent Design, but the question is: can these counterarguments actually challenge a modernized version of Paley's Watchmaker with any real success? It seems to me that all of these counterarguments … [Read more...]
